Inmate 57

Admit it, if you were Wesley Snipes and facing 3 years in prison for a tax evasion scheme, you’d try to bribe the prosecutor too. Well, not bribe, but maybe a big payment, you know… pay a… fine. $5 million in a lump sum might do. Or maybe not. It sort of reminds one of an encounter with Mexican police.
“You, vandalizing that payphone, you are under arrest.”
“What are you talking about? I was calling my girlfriend.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“Uh, yes.”
“You’re under arrest. Public intoxication.”
“Uh, maybe I can… just pay a fine? Right here? How about, say, $5 million?”
I think it works better in Mexico.
One comment that alarms me came from the prosecutor:

This case cries out for the statutory maximum term of imprisonment, as well as a substantial fine, because of the seriousness of defendant Snipes’ crimes and because of the singular opportunity this case presents to deter tax crime nationwide.

Am I the only one uncomfortable with the prospect that nationwide deterrence would be a legitimate cause for augmenting criminal penalties?
Apparently, the argument was at least somewhat compelling. Snipes got 3 years. Ouch.Wesley Snipes Gets 36 Months In Prison [WSJ Law Blog]

Admittedly I’m not intimately familiar with the exact details of this case (and too lazy to check), but from what I gather snipes major f-up was not even filing and blatently not paying taxes. I mean honestly, how f’in hard is it to avoid paying taxes in this country if you’re that wealthy?
If for nothing else than rank stupidity Snipes got an appropriate punishment.

Your labor is your private property, and freely exchanging it with your employer does not constitute “income” as defined in the courts where income as defined as (gains or profits from corporate activity).
Think before you speak Mr. 9:56AM

there’s nothing wrong with the idea of nationwide deterrence per se. legal scholars have long broken down the deterrence effect of imprisonment into two categories: specific deterrence (making sure the person punished is less likely to commit the crime again) and general deterrence (making sure others who see the punishment learn a lesson and do not repeat similar mistakes themselves). however, what you really seem to be getting at is the issue of equal treatment under the law. it’s one thing, for example, to justify long sentences for drug dealers on the grounds of general deterrence. but it’s another thing altogether when you start using general deterrence to justify a long sentence for one particular individual, targetting him for harsh treatment just because of his fame. that is problematic.

He should have gotten 20 years for being so totally stupid. Hey Wes, ever hear of “offshore” – and no, I don’t mean Liberia or Nigeria. Well, you got some time now in the bighouse to read up in the library, so start with Panama and go from there. By the way Wes, nice choice to pick Woody as a character witness – that sure seems to have impressed the judge.

I didn’t follow it either, but he must have been pretty blatant if he couldn’t even pin this on some combination of lawyers and accountants. It’s basically assumed dumb celebrities don’t file their own taxes. We even assume wealthy financial types don’t understand the illegality of foreign shelters so long as long as they keep their distance. What an idiot.

“You just going to sit there and do your taxes, Ness? Is that whats good in the streets now, your taxes?!”
Diddy does not agree with you EP.
Slim Jim on the other hand would totally go for a Too Wong Foo remake. Instant classic.
-Nom me

3 years for not filing returns..
no years for 50 bullets in an unarmed man… (drive away man.. oh, snap, he’s in a car, that’s a dangerous weapon, hey I’m a cop, no really mo-fo.. pop pop pop times 50)
God BLESS amerikkka… so proud, so proud..

Hey Snipes, even Mel Gibson has the brains to hire a Jew Tax Attorney.
Snipes is a prime example of the mouth-to-brains ratio prevalent in Hollywood these days. Only moreso.
Hubris, judeophobia and second-rate gangsta’ movies all lose.
The rest of us win.
Rot in jail Snipes.

Everyone who willfully does not file taxes will eventually get the same treatement as Mr. Snipes. As for the unarmed guy, two of the three detectives are Black. Somehow the NAACP (National Association for the Advacancement of Crazy People)seems to always fail to mention that. So those Black folk shouting ‘KKK’ are essentially calling themselves that as well. Nice. Or not.

White men can’t jump. But they sure can let you know how they feel about that statement and movie when you’re taking a shower Wesley… Better not drop the soap – or somebody’s going to be slam dunkin’ your rectum!

I see another remake of The Longest Yard or Cool Hand Luke, about 12 months after he makes parole, which will be in under 12 months sooo…
Coming for Summer 2010, Wesley Snipes is back in …
Horton Pays a Fine
There Will Be Groping
Abonement
Forrest Rump
Das Butt
Boy Story

10.41, i was going to mention that two thirds, or 66%, or two out of the three detectives involved were not white or kkk. any way you look at it it had nothing to do with race, cops bullying thugs maybe, but not race.
as far as snipes goes, he was busted when the accounting firm he used was uncovered and busted for illegal practices. not only did he not pay taxes but his accountants made it look like he overpaid and got money back from the government – that’s the big deal, he stole what wasn’t his.

@10:40 & 10:41
While the color factor is something openly thrown around in the case, this is not my major issue. An unarmed man, was gunned down and the cops get not so much as a slap on the wrist. The value of life in America just became greatly diminished.

@10:59 I was just focusing on the race issue because it has been reported that some people in the crowd were chanting ‘KKK’ and that Reverend Al is involved. I was not focusing on the police issue. There are good cops and there are bad cops – just like people. Unfortunately, with bad cops some people end up in prison or dead.

@10:54 – or both in this case. I agree with some of the other posters and EP that capitalizing on a single individual’s fame to send a message to the world seems hardly just. At least they should have tried to cover it up better. Anyways, he won’t serve the 3 years as we all know.

@10:59
youre missing the point – why was an unarmed man gunned down. millions of unarmed people safely walk the streets every day and cops dont go around shooting them all willy nilly – it has no upside for them. most cops go their entire careers without firing a gun.
he was gunned down for the same reason pacman always gets in trouble, same reason 1/2 of the bangals are in jail, etc. trouble follows people who live a certain kind of lifestyle.

Bigger problem is, they gave all the cops Glocks with crazy hair triggers.
Pull that sucker and 50 bullets are in the air before you even know it.
Amadou Diallo took 41 shots from four officers, got hit 19 times, reaching for his *wallet*.
Tell me you feel safe knowing that, as a black man walking home in the dark.

@HAM. true. trouble those who get drunk, run out of a sketchy strip club /prostitution ring to fetch someone else’s gun from the car then try to flee when approached by the cops. or even any one or combination of those things.

I really didn’t want to get into this discussion, but wasn’t this guy yelling and shouting at a seedy sh!thole in Queens that was already being watched by police, talking about guns (having a gun, etc), shooting people, yadda yadda?
Sure, everyones stumbled outa some bar in manhatta (or wherever) blackout drunk rambling some nonsense, but its not often (i’m assuming/hoping) that many DB readers frequent similar establishments and run their mouths about havin a piece and bustin a cap in someone’s ass.

@ Anal_yst
So what you’re saying is if he’d been stumbling out of a Scores in Manhattan wearing a nice enough shirt and talking the same shit, he wouldn’t have met the same fate? Just wanted to be sure I understood.
This guy might have been a thug but no one deserves 50 fucking bullets. I’m pretty sure the police academy teaches you to shoot them in the arm so they can’t use their gun, not tear the threatening suspect to shreds. They deserve to have been imprisoned.

@ girl
you can hit an arm from a mile away w a hunting rifle? officially scared of you.
and its not ridiculous. when police approach a suspect w a gun, do you think that gunmen is aiming at their arms? id argue not.

@girl
Really? Wbile taking cover from a car trying to hit you combined with all the other circumstances? Rifle/Pistol comparisons aren’t really legit either, but I would bet a few of your shots would be off target too.

Girl,
I didnt realize you used a 50 cal sniper rifle for your hunting…http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/infantry/rifle/M107.html
I happen to have a small collection of toys and there are very few toys that can reach out and touch a target @ 1 mile. The effective range on the 50 cal is one mile and it does not leave much meat on impact.
Are you sure you didn’t mean 1/4 of a mile? There are a lot of rounds that can reach out that far and hit their target. But 1 mile? hunting?
~SEG
Who has more toys then he needs…

@11:48 I’m no expert, but I have trouble hitting a stationary target at 10 yards with a 9mm – let alone 25 to 50 yards. Then again, once hit, I really don’t see how anyone survives. True, these are police officers and practice, but I know someone who was an Olympic-caliber shooter (rifle) and he had trouble hitting much of anything either with a 9mm at over 20 yards.

Any traders here ever make a mistake when things get crazy. I mean really crazy. Crazy like you’ve never encountered before. Not like they taught you in traders school (kidding…..). And then you get that feeling in your stomach. But you don’t go to jail, you don’t have your life ruined. So why do you think the cops should go to jail? I know, yr gonna say a trading error is not the same as taking ones life. I’m gonna say that when a cop is involved it is. He’s doin his job, like we do ours.

I would just say to EVERYONE that when a cop tells you to do something – YOU DO IT! It may not be right, it may not be fair, you may not be guilty, but until the dust settles just FOLLOW THEIR DIRECTIONS. Police officers don’t know if you’re harmful or not, carrying or not, or much of anything else about you. You can start arguing about your constitutional rights and harassment AFTER the situation has stabilized. If bullets are flying, GET ON THE GROUND. Even though I too have had my rights violated by the police, I still follow their directions.

to avoid the gun debate (and isn’t human instinct to empty the magazine, and a damn fool thing to give every cop double mag glocks?), girl, were you making a Wire reference?
pink, in the south whites also call them the po po. Is it a regional thing that spread to all blacks, or a black thing that spread to all southerners?

@ EP,
That is a very nice toy…
Koch P7M8
This pistol is most famous for it’s bulletproof all-steel construction and for
being one of the most fast and accurate handguns in the world.
The P7M8 is a 9mm fixed barrel gas-delayed blowback handgun by means
of a special gas piston connected to the slide. What this means is that unlike
99% of the handguns in the world, the P7M8 will not jam for any reason such
as limp-wrist which is a common problem for new or unexperienced shooters.
The fixed barrel locks the action so that it does not move or tilt which makes
the pistol much more accurate than any other handgun on the market. The
pistol is also completely ambidextrious for left or right handed shooters.

@ big r, ha. you should be.
SEG, you know your stuff, nice. 1/4 mile a more accurate assessment. The other 3/4 were for good measure.
The majority of targets are moving you dimwits, that’s part of the challenge. And preparing to shoot a rifle takes considerably more time than a handgun. Point being – no need to literally tear an unarmed man to shreds when there ARE measures to injure as oposed to outright kill. A civilian would be forgiven in acting so irrationally, a policeman, not as much.
Also @ 11:52, i’m tickled that someone finally unmasked my true identity.

I am amazed at all the videos on YouTube and such depicting citizens who confront the police thinking that “it is OK” to do so and that they are “safe” when verbally or physically confronting a policeman who is already nervous and dreading an escalation into what he has to do by his training.

girl – I am no veteran of armed combat, but I know enough to know that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Hunting and target practice bear absolutely no relation to close-quarters armed combat under nighttime urban conditions. If you aim for someone’s arm in that situation, you are far more likely to 1) hit an innocent bystander or one of your partners and 2) end up wounded or dead yourself.
Please. You may be a good shot, but there is a reason that the Army puts highly skilled marksmen in the sniper corps: their amazing skills are useless in a short-range firefight.
Now, if you are implying the NYPD should station snipers on the rooftops around Manhattan and the outer boroughs to handle situations like the Sean Bell incident, that is another story. I would be interested to hear the ACLU’s reaction to that idea.

If you read the news articles about Wesley Snipes carefully, you’ll see he’s going to be serving three one year sentences concurrently. In other words, one year total of jail time. That’s a pretty lenient sentence. I don’t know why the prosecutor opened his mouth about Snipes’ fame; the amount of money involved and the fact that Snipes came to his sentencing waving a $5 million check to try to get out of a prison sentence after he had been convicted spoke volumes.
I don’t know all the ins and outs of the Sean Bell trial, but I do know that civilian critics of the police fought fiercely against arming them with Glock automatic pistols. The police argument at the time was that they had be able to match the criminals’ fire power with their own fire power. The fact that the officers were using automatic pistols certainly contributed to the number of shots fired.
Big r is correct. Cops are taught to shoot at the center of the body. The thought that they shoot at a limb to bring you down but not kill you is a myth. Moreover, a shot in an arm or leg (particularly the leg) can kill you if the shooter severs a large artery.
Anytime you are out and the cops have their guns drawn, you are in danger. It’s not the time to express your appreciation of your God-given civil rights. You can always raise those concerns later, when people aren’t armed with automatics and fueled by adrenaline.
I gather that people are aghast that might not be treated well when they fall out of bar, drunk. White people are treated differently in this country when drunk than black people. That doesn’t mean that if you’re white, stumbling around drunk, everything is going to end up just fine. There’s no end of mishaps that can befall a drunk person in the city, and some of them have fatal consequences.

I disagree with all of you. I coul certainly hit any spot on girls body, be it her chin, tramp stamp or eye from 6 inches with a non lethal (money) shot. I am always willing to get behind her, or on top of her, and prove my case.
Thadius R. Rogers
Trained Marksman/Evaluator of Talent

1:08, you clearly have trouble with the concept of logical deduction. The example was meant to show that if I could shoot a moving deer from afar, surely an entire group of policemen could contain the threat of one unarmed man without shooting 50 shots at short range. You mention all the elements that would compromise training and aim in this sort of situation. Let me break it down for you:
“Nightime Urban Conditions”
The bartenders testified that the man had had ONE drink, and that he was arguing as men are wont to do when (barely?) inebriated. The parking lot in which the incident occurred was well lit.
It was “armed combat”
As present as the threat of arms was per Bell’s declaration to his friend to “get his gun”, he in fact was NOT carrying a gun on his person.
You can twist my words as much as you like re: the intricacies of different guns and varying levels of combat, but at least have the evidence to back up the fact that the situation actually was one of urban-arms to arms combat. This wasn’t a fucking gang war, it was a guy from the wrong side of the tracks who was going to get married the next fucking day, and a bunch of clueless cops out to catch a hooker who got in over their heads and brutally murdered someone for what appears to be NO REASON.
I’m not trying to beat humanity into you, but it wouldn’t hurt to impart a bit of logic in any case.

girl, are you really that stupid? Last time I checked, a deer galavanting through a meadow is rather more predictable than a group of potentially armed men who are patronizing a known place of ill-repute. That is a completely illogical comparison.

As I said above, a drunk man coming out of a strip club raising his voice about stupid shit could (and probably is) any given one of you on a Saturday night- Both he and the deer are animals and no, there isn’t really a vast difference.
But i’m chuffed you had to resort to calling me stupid. You’re losing ground.

@1:13 wrote “If you read the news articles about Wesley Snipes carefully, you’ll see he’s going to be serving three one year sentences concurrently. In other words, one year total of jail time.”
If you read the article carefully, you’ll see he’s going to be serving 3 one year sentences consecutively. In other words, 3 years total of jail time.

Girl
I understand your argument, I think you fail to give enough credence to the fact that as a police officer, you DON’T KNOW what the other guy has/doesn’t have, or what the other guy(s) are going to do.
For all these officers knew (and from various sensory information they were able to pick up) this guy was just as likely to be, as you put it “any of us on Saturday night” or a violent cop-killer.
Unfortunately for this poor guy, the cops, for their own safety, must assume the worst-case scenario, and certainly, this guy did not give the police any reason to suspect otherwise.
Did they need to shoot him 50 times? Absolutely not. Do things happen ‘in the heat of the moment’ that we wish we could take back? Absolutely.
At the chance of making a completely blind assumption, I’d venture to guess that you do not have very many close friends who are active duty police or other law-enforcement officers, judging from your view on the matter.

anal_yst: no. if ever cop assumed “worst case scenario,” there would be a lot more dead people who came out of a club/bar/whatever drunk on a saturday night. probably including you. these were a bunch of corrupt fucking cops, and everyone damn well knows it.

@ 3:15
You very well may be right, and perhaps I chose my words poorly.
The point is that uncertainty sucks when your life is potentially on the line.
Did these guys totally blow it (sorry for the pun)? Seems like it to me.

The whole “lives on the line” argument sounds good but crumbles when the facts are analyzed. How many cops die a year in the line of duty? (relatively speaking, not very many) How many people die a year in auto accidents? (comparatively, a lot) Do those of you who believe the “lives on the line” argument believe every time you get into a car your life is on the line?

@3:15 “corrupt fucking cops” who waited their entire lives for just this opportunity to blow away some random guy at no personal gain to themselves? do you have anything to base this on other than you just assume it is the cops fault?

The Great Doctor Representative Ron Paul would have just ninja-kicked this guy in his neck through the windshield, temporarily stunning him but leaving no permanent damage. I know, we go to the same dojo and I have seen him do it on numerous occasions.
The DRRP would have paid out of his own pocket to repair the windshield.

@3,24 — again, it makes no difference. when you sign up, you accept the risk and view it as acceptable. if your head is blown off, well, you knew it was a possibility.
@3.27 – when the public view cops as an us v them scenario, it cant always be the public’s fault.

@ Anal_yst- I appreciate your viewpoint too, fair and balanced and ultimately acknowledging that these cops acted like total hacks at the end of the day
@ 3:15 true as well.
I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten into some fights in front of seedy clubs in my day. Of course, it was Cain… and the argument centered on where the after party would be…but we looked pretty fucking threatening nonetheless.

@3:30 Rediculous comparisons? Is that all you can come back with? Now I understand, when the facts aren’t on your side its best to call the other parties argument “rediculous”. Please put down the donut and get back to your patrol car.

“What we saw in court today was not a miscarriage of justice,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said later on his radio program.
“Justice didn’t miscarry,” he said. “This was an abortion of justice. Justice was aborted.”
When the Rev. Al can’t even make a substantive comment out of something like this, you know there was no case to begin with.

@3:47
Yes, we expect them to make split second judgment calls in situations like this using the information that they have at hand. Unfortunately for all those involved, some of the information they were going on turned out to be incorrect. Were 50 shots excessive. It’s easy for those of us no where near that type of situation to say it was. Does excessive force used warrant manslaughter charges or these guys going to jail for 25 years? Well, a better legal mind than anyone making an argument here decided that the prosecutors sure didn’t prove it so.

Sorry but if you are dumb enough to think you can get in a car and run over a bunch of cops, then go home and grab a couples hours of sleep – you deserve to be shot. It’s social Darwinism. These guys were acting like they were playing out a scene from Grand Theft Auto.

Ha funny story about that, had to go visit family out in Bayside a while back, spent some time waiting at a Bar near the LIRR…anyway I find out a few days later apparently someone got murdered there like the day after.
Yea, F queens.

Cops don’t have a dangerous job? Well, a lot of the job is boring, but just now and then, a cop finds himself/herself in a horrible situation that is very dangerous. We expect them, without flinching, to go out and handle any disruption that may occur.
It’s silly to say that if the job was so dangerous, it would be higher paid. Firemen aren’t highly paid, nor are underground miners, nor are high-rise construction workers. Concerning their particular job, cops are poorly paid because they are low-level government workers. But the value of their work is unestimable.
If the beats cops patrol are peaceful, well then, let’s be grateful because it means a whole lot of people, including the cops, are doing their job.
Broader society doesn’t know how it really feels about prostitution, cocaine, marijuana, gambling, and public drunkenness. The cop sees all the vices and the disruptions they produce. We then expect exquisite judgment out of cops, although we don’t find it anywhere else in life.
There’s a cop saying: “Better twelve men sitting in a box than six men carrying a box.” If it was your life on the line, you might agree.

girl — @1:08PM here.
Actually, “logic” is a method of inference and demonstration. It is a philosophical, epistemic, and rhetorical methodology of reasoning and argument which is completely internal to the statements and facts involved. My argument and your reply have nothing whatsoever to do with logic.
I attacked your statement and implication that these policemen could have and should have aimed to wound and disarm Mr. Bell, nothing more. I claimed your argument was faulty, not because it was “illogical,” but because it was simply untrue. Your premises (that shooting to wound and disarm is a practical tactic to employ in an urban law enforcement environment of high stress, uncertainty, and confusion, “well-lit” or not) were simply and irrefutably incorrect. “Logic” had nothing to do with it.
If you want to introduce (impute) a bunch of extraneous shit into the conversation–like your opinion that the policemen had “NO MOTIVE”–you are welcome to do so. I wouldn’t presume to do so and have made no comment that what the policemen did was justified or even appropriate. I just believe it is understandable.
I have no quarrel with your passion on this particular subject. Just don’t confuse your outrage and anger with logic and deduction.
And by the way, sweetheart, don’t mess with a student of philosophy. You obviously don’t have the tools.

Wow! Did anyone mention the point of view of the guys in the car?
Did the officer properly identify himself? Did they realize the guys with guns running up on them were cops?
These guys were in the middle of a seedy neighborhood in Queens, and had had an argument in the club. Sometimes when this happens accomplices will be waiting outside to rectify shit while not wrecking the club.
Maybe these guys we scared! They were totally unarmed after all.
The real problem in this case, and what I presume that blacks are really angry about, is that neither the cops nor the larger non-black society as a whole seems to identify enough with these guys to really consider these possibilities before making up their minds.
-amazed

These animals upon shield in the crevices of houses, hollows, crevices and caves. Some pursuit and live in weighty colonies, others fancy solitude. So, once they develop in a submit in Texas Bracken huge colony of bats in 20 million individuals.

SAC

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